Crave Online:   Why not just put the console game on the DS?

Carlos Rodriguez:   When we did Friend or Foe, we tried to do a movie open world environment and it was really challenging to do that in two screens. For this game, it was just something that the designer at Amaze was like, "We want to try this." Initially, I had my doubts. I was like I don't know if this is the right direction for Spider-Man because we had never done it like this before. But in the end, I think the large open map exploration is a really cool complement to the open city experience you get on next gen.

Crave Online:   And isn't it kind of nice to see the old school side scroller come back?

Carlos Rodriguez:   Like a lot of the guys I've talked to today, they've kind of said it reminds them of a Metroid/Castlevania type of game which is definitely when they initially pitched it to us, I didn't see it that way at all. Then when we started getting the first couple builds, I'm like oh wow, this actually does work really well. It surprised me because I was surprised that nobody had ever tried to do this with a Spider-Man handheld game before because it works.

Crave Online:   And it's always horizontal. You never go back and forth in the backgrounds?

Carlos Rodriguez:   The presentation of the game was really important to us to stay consistent with the art direction and the layout of the environments, but it was something that we wanted to do. We could have easily just done a 2D game with sprites but the DS is a 3D system and it does 2D well but we want to take advantage of the fact that we believe that we can do really, really cool 3D characters with animation, with a lot of animation and also present the world in this really cool amount of depth. If you look at the environments, the environments have this great amount of depth and you see the cross section of the buildings. You see a lot of other cool stuff so that it's consistently a kind of 2D game in a 3D world.

Crave Online:   Was it intentional to make this version looks more like comic book art, where the HD console versions are more photoreal?

Carlos Rodriguez:   That was intentional because with the DS and the screens being small, and also the limitation you have in the amount of polygons, we really went for an art direction that worked for certain polygon limits and things like that. Actually, the way I like to look at it is even in the animation, you see everything is kind of like a little bit exaggerated. It really works for Spider-Man because you're punching people 10 feet, 20 feet away. You're doing a lot of these things that are bigger than a normal, realistic character could do. So yeah, it was completely by design and I think it actually, I think it helps immensely. Another cool thing is the art direction on the game and animation, Amaze put a lot of detail into just even the little ways that he animates. Also I can move up and down on the web line while I'm swinging on it. So they really paid attention to all those cool little details that just make the game feel so much better when you're playing it.

Crave Online:   Are there any easter eggs in the background like the Stark Industry billboards in the console game?

Carlos Rodriguez:   No, there's not really any of that kind of stuff in here. Really our key nods at the universe are the additional characters that you're going to find and some of the comedy you're going to find in the writing. That's another thing that Brian Reed's really good at is not only does he write the characters really well but again, like Spider-Man is all about his one-liners and his quips. You're going to see a lot of that in the voiceover that Spider-Man will give while he's fighting.

 

Crave Online:   Do you have the same Marvel cameos in the DS version?

Carlos Rodriguez:   One character that we share in all versions is Black Cat. You'll run across Black Cat and she's going to have information. She's going to tell you, "You've got to go over here and find this person and do something." So she's kind of like a quest giver but she's also available, once you meet her she'll come to your aid during boss battles. During a boss battle, you'll get a character select screen, it pops up on the bottom of the screen you can actually tap to choose who you want help from. She'll come in swinging on her line and she'll drop health orbs.

 

Crave Online:   Is that also Tricia Helfer's voice?

Carlos Rodriguez:   Yes, it is.

 

Crave Online:   Who else?

Carlos Rodriguez:   We've got Green Goblin. Green Goblin is a character you're going to come across and actually he's in his part of the city just kind of trying to stay alive, so he's fighting off the Syms as well. You can actually come to his aid. You can help him out and if you do, he will be available to be called in as an ally. If you call him, he'll come in during a boss battle and carpet bombs the area with his pumpkin bombs, do a bunch of damage and take off. The other character we're really, really excited about being able to get into our game was Nightcrawler. What's really cool about him is calling him in, he'll actually come in and dance around the screen teleporting and just doing all these really hardcore kung fu moves and do a ton of damage.

Crave Online:   Do you explain how Green Goblin is an ally?

Carlos Rodriguez:   Yeah, it does actually. I kind of alluded to the fact that he's just kind of in his own area trying to survive. Black Cat tells him, "There's people that need your help out there. If you run into them, talk to them." When you run into him, you find out that he's willing to help you if you help him. That's the way you get them to be allies, at least for the time being until he's a bad guy again. For all the versions, we used Brian Reed as our writer. He came in to do some writing for us and Brian Reed previous worked at Treyarch. He was one of the lead designers on Ultimate Spider-Man. We worked with him again on Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. He wrote the story for us and we brought him back because we really like the fact that he writes the characters so well. He writes them really in their character and currently he writes for Marvel. He's a great writer so we brought him back again. What was great about the story for Web of Shadows is that because the threat is so big, it makes sense that some of these villains might actually be allies because this thing is bigger than all of them and that's kind of the way it all boils down in the game.

 

Carlos Rodriguez:   No, those characters are in the next gen version and we got our exclusives, Green Goblin and Nightcrawler.

Crave Online:   Otherwise, are you playing through the same story with black and red suits?

Carlos Rodriguez:   Spider-Man's got his red and black suit in the game. His black suit is something he has full control over. In black suit, you've got different abilities. In the red suit, Spider-Man's got webbing off the A button. In the black suit he's got a dash. The dash lets you attack bad guys, run into them but you can also do long distance jumping. The red suit is traditionally acrobatic, really fast, lots of web moves. The black suit on the other hand is a little more aggressive, very powerful moves. You're going to have really powerful punches and really damaging kind of stuff. Depending on the player, how they want to play it, they might want to just upgrade one suit completely and they can do that, but we give them the choice to create the Spider-Man they want to have. My web swinging can be used as an attack so I can actually kick people through that swing. Another thing you'll see is that I can actually web people up, pull them around, throw them around. I can actually launch somebody in the air, switch suits and come out with a different attack which is a really big part of the combat system, the ability to create you own combos and discover new hybrid attacks you can do using the moves that you've discovered.

Crave Online:   I'm loving grabbing guys with the web and flinging them across the room.

Carlos Rodriguez:   Oh yeah. We had a really awesome combat designer over at Amaze. The guy is a huge fan of fighting games. It was his goal to make this combat system one of the coolest, most fun and dynamic things that he could do.

Crave Online:   Can black suit still throw cars in this version?

Carlos Rodriguez:   There's no cars to throw.

Crave Online:   Does the exhaustion minigame kick in every time you run out of health?

Carlos Rodriguez:   Every time you run out of health completely, we're going to give you that chance to regain your health. If I use one of them up, I've got two left. If the boss reduces my health to zero two more times, then I have to go to my last save and start from there. So there is a chance to come back to this.